(The story starts in an abbey of Salzburg, Austria, in the last Golden Days of the Thirties. Halleluyah!

Bernice: Reverend Mother...

Reverend Mother: Sister Bernice.

Bernice: I simply cannot find her.

Reverend Mother: Marisa?

Bernice: She's missing from the abbey again.

Sister A: Perhaps we should have put a cowbell around her neck.

Sister B: Have you tried the barn? You know how much she adores the animals.

Bernice: I have looked everywhere, in all of the usual places.

Revernd Mother: Sister Bernice, considering that is Maria, I suggest you look in some place unusual.

(Later, Maria gets back and comes to see Reverend Mother.)

Reverend Mother: I'm here, my child. Now sit down.

Maria (short for M): Oh, Reverend Mother, I'm so sorry. I just couldn't help myself. The gates were open and the hills were beckoning and before...

Reverend Mother: I know! I have not summoned you here for apologies.

M: Oh, please Mother, do let me ask for forgiveness.

Reverend Mother: If it will make you feel better.

M: Yes. Well you see, the sky was so blue today and everything was so green and fragrant. I just had to be a part of it! And you know those birds kept meeting me higher and higher as though it wanted me to go right through the clouds with it.

Reverend Mother: Child, suppose darkness had come and you were lost?

M: Oh, Mother, I could never be lost up there. That's my mountain, I was brought up on it. It was the mountain that led me to you.

Reverend Mother: Oh?

M: When I was a child, I would come down the mountain and climb a tree and look over into your garden. I'd see the sisters at work and I would hear them sing on their way to Vespers, which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today without permission.

Reverend other: Maria, it is only here in the abbey that we have rules about postulant singing.

M: I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things. Everything and anything I think and feel.

Reverend Mother: Some people would call that honesty.

M: No, but it's terrible, Reverend Mother. You know how Sister Beth always makes me kiss the floor after we had a disagreement? Well lately I've taken to kissing the floor when I see her coming just to save time.

Reverend Mother: Maria, when you saw us over the abbey wall and longed to be one of us, that didn't necessarily mean that you were prepared for the way we live here, did it?

M: No, Mother. But I pray and I try and I am learning. I really am.

Reverend Mother: What is the most important lesson you have learned here, my child?

M: To find out what is the will of God and to do it whole-heartedly.

Reverend Mother: Maria, it seems to be the will of God that you leave us.

M: Leave you?

Reverend Mother: Only for a while, Maria.

M: Oh, please, Mother, don't do that. Please don't send me away! This is where I belong. It's my home. My family. It's my life.

Reverend Mother: Are you truly ready for it?

M: Yes, I am.

Reverend Mother: Perhaps if you go out into the world for a time, knowing what we expect of you. You will have a chance to find out that you could expect it from yourself.

M: I know what you expect, Mother, and I can do it. I promise I can!

Reverend Mother: Maria...

M: Yes, mother. It is God's will.

Reverend Mother: There is a family near Salzburg that needs a governess until needs a governess until September.

M: September?!

Reverend Mother: To take care of seven children.

M: Seven children?!

Reverend Mother: Do you like children Maria?

M: Oh yes, but seven....

Reverend Mother: I will tell Captain Von Trapp to expect you tomorrow.

M: A captain?

Reverend Mother: A retired officer of the imperial Navy. A fine man and a brave one. His wife died several years ago. Living in the dorm with the children, and I understand he has had a most difficult time managing to keep a governess there.

M: Er.. Why difficult, Reverend Mother?

Reverend Mother: The Lord will show you in His own good time.

(Maria, with her bag and guitar in hands, walks sullenly out of the abbey.)

M (singing): What will this day be like, I wonder.

What will my future be, I wonder.

It could be so exciting to be out in the world, to be free.

My heart should be wildly rejoicing,

Oh, what's the matter with me? I've always longed for adventure, to do the things I've never did. Now here I'm pacing adventure, then why am I so scared?

(Oh, help.)

I have confidence in confidence alone,

Besides which you see, I have confidence in me.